Seoul’s latest cultural mainstay was a recent subject of an introspective investigation with help from its creator Herzog & de Meuron. 

The Swiss firm returned to its debut Korean design with an augmented reality exhibition titled Exploring SongEun Art Space that uses physical and digital models, drawings, sections, and printed images to give visitors a real insider's perspective on the creation and inner workings of the new 11-story museum.

With help from Swiss VR/AR specialists Bandara, the installation delved into the new building in an extraordinary high-tech way, displaying documentation that explored the design and construction process from the initial conception in Basel to the physical realization last September in Seoul's Gangnam district. It consisted of seven augmented reality stations, where different images in the room triggered videos, models, and other media from some of the more significant portions of the project's development.

According to HdM, the exhibition was meant as a continued exploration of an essential question — what is the most optimal way to exhibit architectural projects? — that the firm has been searching for a solution to dating to its seminal show at Basel’s Architekturmuseum in 1988.

An additional booklet was produced for the exhibition that embedded the “trigger” images which activate several photographs of their initial presentation to the cultural body. The augmented reality stations were eventually taken apart and re-installed in Basel in order to extend the lifetime of the exhibition. 

HdM's AR integration is one of the many examples of architecture firms utilizing AR and VR tools to showcase design possibilities. Exploring SongEun Art Space was on display last year from September 30th until November 21st.